Just back from a dinner in West Hollywood: shocked the majority of the table was voting for Trump but they would never admit it publicly.— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) February 21, 2016
What I posted a month ago: "The coming cascade of smart, educated people embracing Trump."
ADDED: Here's something I've been meaning to say about Trump: If a Democratic candidate were drawing in the sector of the American public that is going for Trump, they would be bragging about their appeal to the working class, the salt of the earth.
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66 comments:
@Althouse, I suspect intelligence and analytical ability are negatively correlated with home addresses in Hollywood.
They know that Hillary is the worst liar they've ever seen in politics and have no willingness whatsoever to see, as the first woman president, our very own Democratic Richard Nixon. Or worse. At least Nixon had a sense of paranoia about the trouble his shamelessness could get him into. Hillary lacks even that.
And they have no interest in throwing away the last chance to recapture the Democratic party's legacy of FDR so as to consolidate the other wing of the party: The Boss Tweed/Dixiecrat/Carter/Clinton Political Machine of Moronic Ineptitude and Convictionless Power Grabbing.
There's a lot of healthy purging going on across the spectrum. But a surgery is needed to excise this carbuncle.
Either a very precise surgery or a powerfully crude amputation move by the voters at large. Even those in West Hollywood.
It's entirely consistent to be smart and educated and to be a complete sucker.
Ask everyone who gave money to Bernie Maidoff, who didn't get rich in $10 increments he scammed off hillbillies from West Virginia.
"@Althouse, I suspect intelligence and analytical ability are negatively correlated with home addresses in Hollywood."
Well, I thought about that, but the question is: Who goes out to dinner with Bret Easton Ellis?
In West Hollywood...
> they would be bragging about their appeal to the working class, the salt of the earth.
The same could have been said of Palin.
"Trump is the Wonderbra of American politics. He pushes everything Up and Out and In Your Face. But you know what's left when the Wonderbra comes off, don't you?
Donald J. Trump sure as hell does."
~Lucian K. Truscott IV, Village Voice
Trump's son said his dad was kind of a blue-collar billionaire.
Trump don't brag. It ain't braggin' if it's true.
Trump is an Alpha Male. Despite 30+ years of political correctness, folks still migrate towards the Alpha Male.
Did you hear about the Sanders supporters yelling "English Only" during the Nevada caucus? Trump could very easily peel off a lot of working class Dem voters. For too many years, the Dems have thrown in with the upper class white elite agenda.
Why do I always feel the need to preface a pro Trump statement with the disclaimer I don't support him?
In Hollywood, it is all about how you look. They believe in high class showmanship style in body shape, clothing and dramatic presence. Some have got "it" and some have nothing.
Trump has a high set of Hollywood Values to go with his New York City Values. Don't tell Canadian Cruz and his religious zealots.
@Bill, Snopes says Sanders supporters yelling "English only" is a hoax.
Maybe a hoax. I saw there was a video but I didn't bother to watch it. Now I have to go and watch.
"If a Democratic candidate were drawing in the sector of the American public that is going for Trump, they would be bragging about their appeal to the working class, the salt of the earth." Not anymore. He offends Others too much: illegals and Muslims. In the Prog hierarchy, that trumps mere white workers.
I don't know much about a "cascade" but this might be the bottom line. Extracted from "DONALD TRUMP AND THE JOYS OF TOY FASCISM" -
Fascism is in the air. It's a special kind of gold-plated fascism, a fascism with a special orange color, a fascism with special turned-out lips, a fascism with a special voice, a fascism in a special shiny suit, a fascism that rides around in special big black cars and flies around in special big private jets, a fascism that arises not from ideology but from a special sort of privilege and a special sort of resentment unique to New York City: outer-borough resentment. In short, it's from Queens and it's Donald Trump's kind of fascism. It's Toy Fascism.
Everything about Trump is toy. He has Bratz girlfriends and Barbie Doll wives with very long legs and very tiny waists and very large breasts. He plays G.I. Joe when he talks about ISIS. His buildings are glass-enclosed Erector Sets. His Miss Universe pageant was always a double-A farm team for the Big Leagues of the Trump Bedroom. Even his books are toys — volumes of pretend "writing" sandwiched between covers intaglioed with a pancaked, hairspray-drenched Trump.
It's the "Trump" we've seen for all these years on the covers of his books, on the Page Sixes of the tabloids, oozing his way into our living rooms in color on our televisions. He's not a real live breathing human being with stuff like sweat glands and the occasional stubble of a beard, even a teeny doubt in his mind. No, what we are watching every day is a "pageant Trump," and it's why the national political press has been so confused. Covering him is like covering the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. It's supposed to be hot and sexy and fun and irresistible, but it turns out to be just a bunch of pneumatic posing — all feathers and sequins and nylon and cheap lace from China . . . .
You can't make an argument against a fan's taste. All you can do is stand back and gape in abject amazement as they line up to buy the T-shirts and the lapel buttons and Trump Red Ties, as they sit for Frank Luntz–led focus groups and expound on how nothing matters but Trump. Not politics. Not policy. Not truth. Not logic. Not the guy pulling the strings behind the screen of the reality show they're watching. Just the guy who's winning. Just Trump.
Yeah, but you never explained why "smart, educated people" would embrace a buffoon and liar like Trump.
This is important in the General Election. Especially if the dudes think that means they are electing the actor to play a General.
Trump also has the best stylish Airplanes and stylish Helos and stylish Hotels and stylish children. His cars seem to be Limos, but that just appeals to the Hollywood folks more.
"Trump don't brag. It ain't braggin' if it's true."
I see the cascade coming no matter what the angry GOPe types say.
You might consider reading this.
But his appeal may have even more to do with his personality. No one pushes Trump around, and no insult goes unanswered. He fights back. He is not cautious or fearful of offending a critic or any of America’s adversaries. In this, Trump has a personality type that’s common to the charismatic leaders who emerge in times of turmoil and uncertainty, when people are ready to follow a strong leader who promises to lead them to greatness.
Freder, read the link I posted.
FTR: it is a proven scientific fact in Leadership Studies that men like to serve under an intelligent man who is a sharp dresser. It's not for nothing that Patton wore a uniform and pearl handled 45's and boots to make his men respect him.
The reaction of Gadfly and other Trump haters to that style only reveals their abominable ignorance. They are accusing Trump of being just like a great leader.
@Althouse, Bret Easton Ellis makes his living as a writer. If he's having dinner it's not with his plumber, not with the guy who mows his lawn, it's with other writers, or perhaps with his agent and a producer to whom he's pitching a story.
Patto never wore "pearl handled 45's;" He wore a Colt .45 SAA and a Smith & Wesson .357, both with ivory grips.
Hagar is right on Patton's fashion shtick, of course. Made you think. A sharp dressed man is a General with a loyal staff and proud soldiers. Looks matters in Leadership. Trump knows that and he puts the time into it. His red Ballcap cannot compete with Lincoln's stovepipe hat, but he is on the right track.
That's the type of intellectual firepower I expect from the Village Voice and its writers -- none at all.
Trump can be very entertaining. Immigration, the Wall,China, Bill Clinton. It’s really great stuff, but it’s time for him to get serious. But based track record, it looks like he is going try to flim-flam his way in to the White House. And judging by his business practices, flim-flam is his greatest skill. He claims to be worth 10 billion while waving financial statement that has been audited by a "big accounting firm—one of the most highly respected." Yet he has never names the accounting firm. He did the same thing with the recent FEC filing. Based on “Trump V Brien” 2011, he is a complete fabricator.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/nj-superior-court-appellate-division/1579526.html
Timothy O’Brien wrote a book “The Art of Being the Donald”. The book wasn’t that incendiary, but Trump sued him for insinuating the Donald wasn’t all that wealthy. Trump lost badly. The case summary is pretty funny, but the money moment is when he took the stand.
Q Now, Mr. Trump, have you always been completely truthful in your public statements about your net worth of properties?
A I try.
Q Have you ever not been truthful?
A My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings, but I try.
Q Let me just understand that a little bit. Let's talk about net worth for a second. You said that the net worth goes up and down based upon your own feelings?
A Yes, even my own feelings, as to where the world is, where the world is going, and that can change rapidly from day to day. Then you have a September 11th, and you don't feel so good about yourself and you don't feel so good about the world and you don't feel so good about New York City. Then you have a year later, and the city is as hot as a pistol. Even months after that it was a different feeling.
So yeah, even my own feelings affect my value to myself.
Q When you publicly state what you're worth, what do you base that number on?
A I would say it's my general attitude at the time that the question may be asked. And as I say, it varies.
This shows an incredible disdain for the courts and the serious responsibility of financial reporting. People have gone to jail for making such financial claims. He actually claims 3 billion of his net worth is his name! He claims it’s more valuable than Coke and Pepsi. I know a lot of people enjoy seeing him throwing sand in the gears, but this is not honorable conduct. I love Ronald Reagan, but he was a gentleman and an honorable man. Trump is neither.
"Fascism is in the air. It's a special kind of gold-plated fascism, a fascism with a special orange color, a fascism with special turned-out lips, a fascism with a special voice, a fascism in a special shiny suit, a fascism that rides around in special big black cars and flies around in special big private jets, a fascism that arises not from ideology but from a special sort of privilege and a special sort of resentment unique to New York City: outer-borough resentment. In short, it's from Queens"
Strange that a special Queens state of mind should be so popular in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. But this inability to think that any real problems have been created for any real people by the Gigantic-Sucking-State is all part of the NYC values-voter state of mind.
Freder Frederson said...
Yeah, but you never explained why "smart, educated people" would embrace a buffoon and liar like Trump.
Let's be honest. You voted for the buffoon and liar currently in the Whitehouse. And you're 'smart' and 'educated'. Aren't you?
"Trump also has the best stylish Airplanes and stylish Helos and stylish Hotels and stylish children. His cars seem to be Limos, but that just appeals to the Hollywood folks more."
Trump's children are wonderful well-adjusted adults who obviously love and admire their dad which reflects well of Trump.
@Big Mike
It looks like you are right. WaPo has not retracted but has an "update". I seem to have reached my limit at WaPo so I don't know what they are saying now.
Still the larger point is still valid. The Dems have shunned the working class people. It may come and bite them in the butt.
Smart and educated are fools this Ph.D. Will not vote trump ever
Months ago Scott Adams predicted after winning republican nomination Trump would ask the country for a landslide and he'd get one.
So I wanna know, just how close is this West Hollywood crowd to being the Public Joke of 2016 -- the Sanders/Trump voter.
You know; that breed that the New York Times discovered when covering a Trump rally in Burlington, Vermont in the weeks before the New Hampshire primary. The casual follower of politics who, this year, has decided that "Bernie is my Number 1, but Trump is my Number 2." Those people (I won't call them voters until they prove that they really are voters) do not know what the fuck is going on. We might as well just cut to the chase and offer all of them free TrumpPhones.
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2016/01/bernie-is-my-no-1-choice-and-trump-is.html
BIG difference. Those who are voting for Trump are dumb hillbillies. If they were voting for Sanders, they would be enlightened working class white people.
Hagar: Patto never wore "pearl handled 45's;" He wore a Colt .45 SAA and a Smith & Wesson .357, both with ivory grips.
"Son, only a pimp in a Louisiana whore house carries pearl handled revolvers, these are ivory."
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
“I will be true to the wife,
I’ll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
WH Auden.
"My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings"
Umm..maybe he's confusing financials with self-image. Some days he feels "so money"..others not so much.
Or..all that time around the Clintons has altered his use of English.
Currently he identifies as a 10 billionaire.
Bill, Republic of Texas: I seem to have reached my limit at WaPo so I don't know what they are saying now.
You can get around that by pasting the link into a private or "incognito" window. At least, works for me in the browsers I use.
Were the 240,000 voters who voted yesterday in SC for Trump 'voters', Chuck -- or do you need to further disparage them?
Thanks Anglelyne that's good info! I'll try it next time.
Althouse,
Your question only raises the prior one: who is "Bret Easton Ellis"?
@Bill, I've been saying for a while that Democrats are treating working class white people the way they treat black people, assuming that working class white people will swallow any abuse and remain in the coalition as long as the right words are being said. May not work so well for this element of the coalition.
Does anyone think that the Democrats care in the slightest for union members? Go ask a steelworker, or someone with a UMW card. Not one of the bosses; ask one of the workers. You'll get an earful.
Anyway, go to www.snopes.com. The entire point of that site is to debunk Internet rumors and modern urban legends, and they're quite good at tracking things back to the source. They describe the claim that Bernie Sanders supporters had chanted "English only," lay out the facts backed up by videotape, and casually remind people that the person who made that claim about Bernie Sanders supporters, Ms. Dolores Huerta, was actually at the event to stump for Hillary Clinton.
Perhaps Dolores is not a wise latina, or perhaps the Clinton attitude towards permissible limits of mendacity have rubbed off on her.
@Kirk Parker, Bret Easton Ellis is a novelist and screenwriter. He wrote "Less than Zero" and "American Psycho," among other things.
I was surprised but I know some Dems who really want to vote for Trump.
he's apparently doing a play based on American psycho,
Big Mike
I don't have to go find Union member. I'm life long UA member.
I don't like the phrase "white working class". Working people people are not white, black or brown. They are men and women trying to put food on the table and decent roof over their heads. They don't want to get sucked into lifelong,soul crushing poverty and dependence on government.
Does no one else internally complete " ... you know, morons" *every time* they hear "salt of the earth"? (blazing saddles - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJbSvidohg )
@Bill, the Democrat establishment has a special level of contempt in their hearts for white working men and women. Other ethnicities are just fine.
Ellis is gay and West Hollywood is disproportionately gay. So one may reasonably infer what category of people he was talking about. Not a large subgroup of voters and perhaps the dinner companions aren't representative of the subgroup either. But it is an interesting anecdote.
Maybe there are a lot of Trump voters but they are in the closet. Even the ones who are out of the closet might be in the Trump voter closet.
So is this kind of like the anti-Pauline Kael?
PS - I assume you meant you are a plumber, not a Crimson Tide alum.
I tell this joke to every plumber I meet, and it always cracks them up.
A brain surgeon has a plumbing emergency on a Sunday night. He calls a plumbing service but of course it's going to cost him.
The plumber arrives, fifteen minutes later everything is fixed, and he presents the bill.
The surgeon goes ballistic. "Do you know that on a per-hour basis you make more than I do for performing brain surgery?"
Plumber replies "Yeah, I didn't make all that much back when I was a brain surgeon, either."
Dr Althouse. Your comment "ADDED: Here's something I've been meaning to say about Trump: If a Democratic candidate were drawing in the sector of the American public that is going for Trump, they would be bragging about their appeal to the working class, the salt of the earth. " is spot on.
It is really sad for me to see how little the GOP supporters care about those people and the wonderful thing trump is doing to expand their party. But they are so wrapped up in the rhetoric they have been spouting for decades that they cannot even contemplate that their policies are not helping those people. They appear deaf and dumb.
"Just back from a dinner in West Hollywood: shocked the majority of the table was voting for Trump but they would never admit it publicly. "
Key words: West Hollywood.
What's the opposite of "swing state?" "California?"
Let me know when you detect a cascade begin to flow in Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Virginia, Michigan, Colorado -- states with significant numbers of electoral votes that could actually turn red in 2016.
Yes. I related some time back that a couple Democrats I knew said they found Trump interesting. Now another Democrat has told me that he's likely voting for him. It's almost like there's a secret legion of bipartisan Trump voters.
A number of Democrats despise Hillary. If she's the nominee, and she will be thanks to her machine, quite a few of those Democrats will see non-conservative Trump as preferable.
What a weird election.
"Even the ones who are out of the closet might be in the Trump voter closet."
There may be a preference cascade that is seen only on election day. Predictions about Trump have been pretty weak so far,
"There may be a preference cascade that is seen only on election day. Predictions about Trump have been pretty weak so far,'
Yes they have been weak in terms of actually materializing, but strong in the vehement language and unshakable conviction of those espousing them. It's almost as if the people making these predictions were...blowhards.
Fabi said...
Were the 240,000 voters who voted yesterday in SC for Trump 'voters', Chuck -- or do you need to further disparage them?
Well in 2012, 243,000 South Carolinians voted for Newt Gingrich in the primary. So yeah, I've got a lot more disparagin' to do.
"Consider this: From 1980 forward, no Republican presidential candidate has won both the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries and gone on to lose the party’s nomination.
And this: Over that same time period, only one Republican victor in South Carolina failed to become the nominee, and that was Newt Gingrich, in 2012. But Gingrich didn’t have Trump’s durable (and sizeable) lead in national polls. He didn’t dominate the race’s narrative and capture an exasperated electorate’s mood the way Trump has."
NYT today.
Working class people who support Trump aren't REAL working class people, Professor, just as black or latino Republicans aren't REAL black or latinos.
When groups' preferences don't line up with what the Left says those groups' preferences should be the Left's answer is either 1)those people aren't true, authentic members of that group or 2)a false consciousness is at work (usually that means that the stupid members of the group have been tricked in some way). "What's the Matter with Kansas" argues 2) broadly, and that book is hugely respected and used by the Left. I suppose a third option would be to claim the particular members of the group who don't vote the way the Left thinks they should are just (old, regressive) racists, sexists, and homophobes, but that's really just a version of 1).
Now, this classification (of black Republicans as not really black, working class Trump supporters as not really working class, etc) is something the Left does. As you've pointed out it's also something the Media does and is doing. Do you need any more proof that the Media and the Left are the same (reporters being Democrats w/bylines in Prof. Reynold's words)?
Bret Easton Ellis is very smart. His podcasts are also extremely entertaining. I found them while puttering about during the blizzard last month after listening to his segment on an old Adam Carolla (on YouTube). Great interviews and discussions. He also rants about the PC police and "safe spaces" garbage.
For those saying so what (or who is he? google)
OK, his dinner companions were a sample of perhaps 10 or fewer people. However, Bret is an intellectual who enjoys conversation and different points of view.
He is also a wealthy gay man in his 50s and so no, he is probably not having dinner with Joe the plumber. That's the point! You can bet these are wealthy, liberal people, not the sort of people who the media portrays as Trump supporters (knuckle dragging racist poor whites who cling to their guns and/or religion).
How is it secret that Trump could attract a huge number of crossover votes? In January, there was a poll that suggested 20% of Democrats would vote for Trump. Just for comparison purposes, Bush II got 11% of Democrats in 2004. The spread between Democrat and Republican crossover in 2004 was about the same though as projected for Trump vs. Clinton in the January poll (11 to 6 => 5% for Bush; 20 to 14 => 6% for Trump). Of course, the structure of Trump's support has probably been evolving since January, and now may well include more crossover from Democrats and less support from Republicans.
Have been trying to find those charts from a month or two ago showing the dramatic increase in the percentage of Republicans who could imagine supporting Trump (contrasted with the decline in the percentage of Republicans who could imagine supporting Bush III). But I can't find them -- anyhow, I think pat assertions that Trump has a low ceiling or has hit his ceiling are probably mistaken. He's already persuaded a lot of people who were dismissing him as unserious last summer.
Tom Wolfe said the "dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe."
Part of Trumps appeal is that we think we know when he means it and when he doesn't. It's like Clinton's supporters "He's lying to everybody else" or Obama's "He has to lie because the American people is a vast collection of hateful idiots!"
Any repub who embraces Trump may or may not be educated, but is definitely not smart. The guy is a total phony, with an unstable lose cannon personality, and not conservative or repub. He will be a repub Obama, or at best another Bush, which is actually worse than a dem obama.
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